Monthly Archives: December 2015

I think I could slip one more entry before New Year 🙂 And yes, we are back from visiting Mr. Fix-It’s parents for Christmas. As much as we’re happy to see them, we are so delighted to come back home and just relax. Especially after all the troubles happened.

Okay.

If you have seen the holiday films, you would see that nothing would go so smooth. You thought that it was just a movie, and it would never happen to you. You are wrong. It could, because that’s exactly what happened to us. Yes, even when we have carefully planned our trip.

Weeks before the travelling day, we have sent the car we’re going to drive in for a check and service. We have booked the hotel way in advance so there’s no last minute rush. We cleaned the house, wash our clothings and get cards and gifts sorted, so we could go very early in the morning without any silly delay. Yes, we planned to leave the house around five in the morning because last year we arrived at Wales quite late, and apparently driving in Wales’s windy road in the dark is not the best thing you could have for a happy driving.

Everything seems to be in the right place.

Until when we got up at half four, getting ready and slipped our toothbrushes and toothpaste in our bag…

I heard a lout expletives from the back room. Mr. Fix-It looked frustrated and miserable. The boiler busted again. You know the love-hate relationship between the Brits and their boilers? Yes, our boiler had problem earlier this year, and just before we left the house, it went again. It drenched the boiler room and almost flood the back room too. We had to stop the water in the house so that it would stop dripping.

My husband phoned the council to report it, and got an assurance that someone could come to get it done once we are back from holiday. But we’ve already late from our schedule.

First crisis evaded. We loaded our stuff to our car, set the satnav.

AND… the car is not starting.

It just didn’t want to start. I mean… we we believe in sign, we would just cancel the holiday, thinking that it is a sign sent by the universe telling us that we should not leave our house at all.

Luckily, our house is a little bit up the slope, so all he needed to do is to give our little car a nudge so it rolled down the slope while he jumpstarted it. The car engine works again, but the engine light was flashing and it made Mr. Fix-It incredibly twitchy. I googled a little when we were filling up our tanks, and told him that the engine light would take time before it goes. It did stop flashing on our first stop in the motorway service.

That is… when we realised that Mr. Fix-It has left his phone home. And he was the one in contact with the B&B we’re going to spend the night in. Luckily, Mr. Fix-It had slipped in his “emergency” mobile phone in one of the bags. He managed to access his e-mails and we’re saved. For now.

I have to say that this trip might be fun for me, but not so for my husband. Bless him, he could not rest for a minute because my father in law and his wife, and I were just making more and more troubles for him. His dad kept asking him to do some ground work, and I got horribly drunk after my father in law poured my third glass of black russian. Probably the only people who were actually trying to make Mr. Fix-It felt relaxed were our B&B Host.

Yep.

We are so happy that we are home. The repairman came this morning and fix our boiler. And the car haven’t done anything dodgy so far. AND… we still have few more days of holiday 🙂

This is the time of the year again. I can’t believe that it is already the end of the year, and I have to say that I am very much embarrassed with what I have achieved this year — which is not much. I should admit.

Usually, I would start from reviewing my new year resolution and see how close I am to the target. But unusually, I did not make any new year resolution this year — something that I deeply regret. I found that setting a target in the beginning of the year has helped me to focus on doing what I want to do. It kept me on the right track, and I wish that next year (which would come soon) I would be able to do it again.

This year, there are so many things happening. For example:

Mr. Fix-It has started a new job. It is a much better job from the last one, especially because now he has got to do something he’s been dreaming of doing for a very long time. I am so proud of him.

The council decided to give us a new kitchen, so to celebrate it, we bought for ourselves a nice little new oven cooker. I am not the queen of the new kitchen. We so love this new kitchen. Unfortunately, when our kitchen was renovated, one of the electrician tripped our fuse, and blew our freview box. Guess what? We have spent the whole year without watching live tv and survived easily.

I went back to Indonesia for a visit, because my sister is married. Reminds me of one wedding in Germany that I sadly had to miss out in Summer this year 😦 I still feel so bad about it.

And, what have I achieve this year?

I have job in a charity organisation. I don’t want to give to much information about the charity and also my role in the job, not only because of how personal it is for me, but also because of the professionalism of my job. But I do love my charity work, and it has given me the sense of achievement. I would love to keep doing it.

I have got a job that is not in a charity organisation. Again, I don’t like talking about this either, mainly because I have been told by the company to be really careful about what I am saying online about their company. So I would rather not talking about it at all, than saying a wrong thing about them (and get sued lol).

I made friends 🙂 Yes, I made friends online, but friends nevertheless. I wish I would have the chance to meet some of them next year.

I started learning how to bake this year 🙂 and, I have to say I quite enjoy the activity. Of course, one year of baking would not make me the expert in baking. Not yet. But I am pretty sure if I can keep my progress, I would be able to participate in the Great British Bake Off soon :p

I also started learning a new language. The language that I have chosen is German because I planned on going there for a wedding (which I unfortunately had to miss :() Es ist ein langsamer Fortschritt, denn Deustch ist neu für mich. Aber, Ich bin froh dass mache Fortschritt ich. Danke. I know some of German speaking readers might cringe reading what I just written, I would welcome any correction too 🙂

I unfortunately haven’t travelled as much as I wanted to, and haven’t been able to be as productive as I think I could be. But then again, without a target goal it is so easy to go astray. I apologise for a very unproductive year, to you, but mainly to myself — for being a lazy procrastinator.

I hope I would be able to post once more before the new year, but it could be a bit tricky as Mr. Fix-It and I would go to Wales to visit my father in law. So, if just in case I wouldn’t post any more entry, I would like to say:

About five years ago, I decided to write this blog in English, because I thought it would help me to improve my English. I found it very helpful. This blog has helped me expand my vocabulary, practice my composition skill, and also spelling.

I have been playing with the idea of start inserting Deutsch in my blog. Obviously, I am not proficient enough to write the whole blog in German. So, I have to apologise to all German speaker in the world who happen to see this blog that I am terribly sorry… Es tut mir leid, for butchering your language. It’s a part of my learning process. Please be kind

It is interesting that I started to see my own progress since two weeks ago after I use this apps called Duolingo. I am not paid to do this and this is not an apps review. I am just saying if you are thinking of learning a second language, and you have English as your basic… this is quite helpful.

For example, I now can do this without looking up translator or dictionary (either you believe it or not).

Yeah. I probably butcher that but that… for two weeks is good enough for me.

I was talking about food (Essen) obviously.

My main problem is that I don’t have anyone to practice it with. My husband is not at all interested in learning German, and nobody I know in Norwich speak or learn German. So I have to settle down with this apps until mein Deustch reicht to go to German and just wing it.